The present disclosure related to quantitative imaging and analytics. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to systems and methods for analyzing pathologies utilizing quantitative imaging.
Imaging, particularly with safe and non-invasive methods, represents the most powerful methods for locating the disease origin, capturing its detailed pathology, directing therapy, and monitoring progression to health. Imaging is also an extremely valuable and low cost method to mitigate these human and financial costs by allowing for appropriate early interventions that are both less expensive and disruptive.
Enhanced imaging techniques have made medical imaging an essential component of patient care. Imaging is especially valuable because it provides spatially- and temporally-localized anatomic and functional information, using non- or minimally invasive methods. However, techniques to effectively utilize increasing spatial and temporal resolution are needed, both to exploit patterns or signatures in the data not readily assessed with the human eye as well as to manage the large magnitude of data in such a way as to efficiently integrate it into the clinical workflow. Without aid, the clinician has neither the time nor often the ability to effectively extract the information content which is available, and in any case generally interprets the information subjectively and qualitatively. Integrating quantitative imaging for individual patient management as well as clinical trials for therapy development requires a new class of decision support informatics tools to enable the medical community to fully exploit the capabilities of made possible with the evolving and growing imaging modalities within the realities of existing work flows and reimbursement constraints.
Quantitative results from imaging methods have the potential to be used as biomarkers in both routine clinical care and in clinical trials, for example, in accordance with the widely accepted NIH Consensus Conference definition of a biomarker. In clinical practice, quantitative imaging are intended to (a) detect and characterize disease, before, during or after a course of therapy, and (b) predict the course of disease, with or without therapy. In clinical research, imaging biomarkers may be used in defining endpoints of clinical trials.
Quantification builds on imaging physics developments which have resulted in improvements of spatial, temporal, and contrast resolution as well as the ability to excite tissues with multiple energies/sequences, yielding diverse tissue-specific responses. These improvements thereby allow tissue discrimination and functional assessment, and are notably seen, for example, in spectral computed tomography (spectral CT), multi-contrast magnetic resonance imaging (multi-contrast MRI), ultrasound (US), and targeted contrast agent approaches with various imaging modalities. Quantitative imaging measures specific biological characteristics that indicate the effectiveness of one treatment over another, how effective a current treatment is, or what risk a patient is at should they remain untreated. Viewed as a measurement device, a scanner combined with image processing of the formed images has the ability to measure characteristics of tissue based on the physical principles relevant to a given imaging approach and how differing tissues respond to them. Though the image formation process differs widely across modalities, some generalizations help frame the overall assessment, though exceptions, nuances, and subtleties drive the real conclusions and until and unless they are considered some of the greatest opportunities are missed.
Imaging in the early phases of clinical testing of novel therapeutics contributes to the understanding of underlying biological pathways and pharmacological effects. It may also reduce the cost and time needed to develop novel pharmaceuticals and therapeutics. In later phases of development, imaging biomarkers may serve as important endpoints for clinical benefit. In all phases, imaging biomarkers may be used to select or stratify patients based on disease status, in order to better demonstrate therapeutic effect.